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Highly recommend flying. Budget vacation or not, it's worth it to avoid the headache of driving/bus on the roads there. Driving on those roads are definitely an experience to see, but it gets old after 10 minutes. You'll be fearing for your life for another 12 hours after that.

Vietnam Airlines has a non-stop flight that only takes an hour. I punched in a random date (March 20) and it's only $180. To not spend all day getting there, that's totally worth it unless you have quite a bit of time.

<<<And unless you actually want to see the country, as opposed to flying over it and seeing clouds.>>>

The question was about getting there in one day. Most people don't have as much time as they might want and can only spend a couple weeks in the region at most so time has to be budgeted. Spending more than a day just getting between two places, when you don't have an option to stop and look at the things you're passing is often not a practical option. Many people are worried about the cost and I think that the trade off between time being able to walk around and the higher cost of the plane ticket vs a bus is worth the cost.

Also, many bus trips do not actually let you really see the country... it flashes by quickly when you have decent roads, or it flashes by on a bumpy road while you close your eyes and try not to be sick, or you're in thick trees and can't really see much beyond the trees on either side of the road.

You said: "that's [cost of the plane] totally worth it unless you have quite a bit of time"

Now you say: "The question was about getting there in one day."

I thought we had moved on from the OP's one day issue. I already posted "if by best you mean fastest, obviously you fly"

I have flown from Saigon to PP. I have taken a boat from Saigon to PP. (Both times I went overland to SR.) The boat was more interesting than the plane, especially the contrast between Vietnam and Cambodia immediately apparent on crossing the border.